Engine 1024 reaches destination on hill above Hwy 50

A large audience of La Juntans and railroad enthusiasts from the surrounding region were in La Junta as Engine #1024 journeyed from its home of many years in Potter Park to a new location overlooking Highway 50, where more passersby will be able to see it.

A large audience of La Juntans and railroad enthusiasts from the surrounding region were in La Junta as Engine #1024 journeyed from its home of many years in Potter Park to a new location overlooking Highway 50, where more passersby will be able to see it. Everyone was amazed, said Assistant City Manager Bill Jackson, when the running gear actually turned after being greased thoroughly. It had not moved in the previous 60 years.

The engine had resided for many years at Potter Park, where generations of youngsters had their pictures made with it before it was fenced in for its own protection. Tom Skinner, conductor, friend of engineer Jesse Jaynes, steam engine speedster, said in a former interview when Jaynes turned 100, "We switched to diesel in 1951. We had to slow down from 110 in the steam engines to 90 in the diesels. They just wouldn't take it." People were surprised when nothing fell off the engine when it was moved. That probably did not surprise Skinner.

Jerry Gonzales, local paint contractor, has been painting Engine #1024 for the past decade or so, just to keep it looking good. He and those who have helped him are all volunteers.

The engine was first moved from its display position in Potter park to beside the swimming pool office, then across the parking lot at the swimming pool to Fourth Street, then down Fourth to Barnes, north on Barnes to the alley by the Southeast Colorado Power Co. on Third Street, then up the hill to its current location. Military equipment, in tandem, was used to pull the locomotive, riding on rails on a sled, over metal plates which were placed in front of it as it went, with plenty of grease.

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Engine #1024 was built in 1901 by Burnham, Williams & Co., an early incarnation of Baldwin Locomotive Works, one of second order of 26 for the La Junta-Albuquerque Division, which had grades of three percent plus in both directions on the section between Trinidad, Colo. and Raton, N.M. Retirements of these engines started in 1941, with the last in 1954. #1024 was donated to the City of La Junta in 1956. It weighs 209,220 pounds, according to www.rgusrail.com. Built as a coal burner, it was later converted to burn oil.

La Junta, truly a railroad town, turned out in droves to watch the progress of AT&SF #1024, "Old Dr. Pepper," across town to its new display location. Don Lowman, former railroad superintendent with 40 years of service, now manages the Otero Museum, which is nearby the new location of #1024. He hopes to convince the town to build a trail up the hill to the locomotive from the museum, which is just below and a little to the east of it on Third Street.